Heaney, Seamus

Average customer rating:

Classic Presented Beautifully By Heaney
Great audio adventure
Beowulf and the audio journey
I like it
There isn't a better version

Beowulf: A New Verse Translation

Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Epic | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Ancient, Classical & Medieval | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Fiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Grendel
The Canterbury Tales (Penguin Classics)
Gilgamesh: A New English Version
Beowulf (Cliffs Notes)
The Odyssey (Penguin Classics)

ASIN: 0393320979

Amazon.com

In Beowulf warriors must back up their mead-hall boasts with instant action, monsters abound, and fights are always to the death. The Anglo-Saxon epic, composed between the 7th and 10th centuries, has long been accorded its place in literature, though its hold on our imagination has been less secure. In the introduction to his translation, Seamus Heaney argues that Beowulf's role as a required text for many English students obscured its mysteries and "mythic potency." Now, thanks to the Irish poet's marvelous recreation (in both senses of the word) under Alfred David's watch, this dark, doom-ridden work gets its day in the sun.

There are endless pleasures in Heaney's analysis, but readers should head straight for the poem and then to the prose. (Some will also take advantage of the dual-language edition and do some linguistic teasing out of their own.) The epic's outlines seem simple, depicting Beowulf's three key battles with the scaliest brutes in all of art: Grendel, Grendel's mother (who's in a suitably monstrous snit after her son's dismemberment and death), and then, 50 years later, a gold-hoarding dragon "threatening the night sky / with streamers of fire." Along the way, however, we are treated to flashes back and forward and to a world view in which a thane's allegiance to his lord and to God is absolute. In the first fight, the man from Geatland must travel to Denmark to take on the "shadow-stalker" terrorizing Heorot Hall. Here Beowulf and company set sail: <blockquote> Men climbed eagerly up the gangplank,
sand churned in the surf, warriors loaded
a cargo of weapons, shining war-gear
in the vessel's hold, then heaved out,
away with a will in their wood-wreathed ship.
Over the waves, with the wind behind her
and foam at her neck, she flew like a bird... </blockquote> After a fearsome night victory over march-haunting and heath-marauding Grendel, our high-born hero is suitably strewn with gold and praise, the queen declaring: "Your sway is wide as the wind's home, / as the sea around cliffs." Few will disagree. And remember, Beowulf has two more trials to undergo.

Heaney claims that when he began his translation it all too often seemed "like trying to bring down a megalith with a toy hammer." The poem's challenges are many: its strong four-stress line, heavy alliteration, and profusion of kennings could have been daunting. (The sea is, among other things, "the whale-road," the sun is "the world's candle," and Beowulf's third opponent is a "vile sky-winger." When it came to over-the-top compound phrases, the temptations must have been endless, but for the most part, Heaney smiles, he "called a sword a sword.") Yet there are few signs of effort in the poet's Englishing. Heaney varies his lines with ease, offering up stirring dialogue, action, and description while not stinting on the epic's mix of fate and fear. After Grendel's misbegotten mother comes to call, the king's evocation of her haunted home may strike dread into the hearts of men and beasts, but it's a gift to the reader: <blockquote> A few miles from here
a frost-stiffened wood waits and keeps watch
above a mere; the overhanging bank
is a maze of tree-roots mirrored in its surface.
At night there, something uncanny happens:
the water burns. And the mere bottom
has never been sounded by the sons of men.
On its bank, the heather-stepper halts:
the hart in flight from pursuing hounds
will turn to face them with firm-set horns
and die in the wood rather than dive
beneath its surface. That is no good place. </blockquote> In Heaney's hands, the poem's apparent archaisms and Anglo-Saxon attitudes--its formality, blood-feuds, and insane courage--turn the art of an ancient island nation into world literature. --Kerry Fried

Book Description

Composed toward the end of the first millennium, Beowulf is the classic Northern epic of a hero's triumphs as a young warrior and his fated death as a defender of his people. The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on, physically and psychically exposed in the exhausted aftermath. It is not hard to draw parallels in this story to the historical curve of consciousness in the twentieth century, but the poem also transcends such considerations, telling us psychological and spiritual truths that are permanent and liberating. In his new translation, Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney has produced a work that is both true, line by line, to the original poem and a fundamental expression of his own creative gift. A New York Times bestseller, winner of the Whitbread Award.

Customer Reviews:

Classic Presented Beautifully By Heaney.......2007-06-16

Here's another one I can add to the "books I never read in school but should have" pile. I would've enjoyed reading this book in a classroom setting. Particularly in college. Beowulf was a wonderful experience made even more enjoyable by Seamus Heaney's mastery of the English language.

Beowulf is a 3,182 line epic poem written "sometime towards the end of the first millennium A.D." It is the story of Beowulf, a hero called upon to rid a city from a monster named Grendel who is descended from Cain of biblical reference. The poem follows Beowulf through his battles, ceremonies, and his remaining days.

The translation here is phenomenal and I enjoyed Heaney's use of language as much as I enjoyed the story. This passage for example, painted a delightfully creepy image for me of the place leading to where Grendel's mother lived:

A few miles from here
a frost-stiffened wood waits and keeps watch
above a mere; the overhanging bank
is a maze of tree-roots mirrored in its surface.
At night there, something uncanny happens:
the water burns. And the mere bottom
has never been sounded by the sons of men.
On its bank, the heather-stepper halts:
the hart in flight from pursuing hounds
will turn to face them with firm-set horns
and die in the wood rather than dive
beneath its surface. That is no good place.

This version was nice because it also included the entire text written in it's original old-English. Not that I could read or understand any of it, but it was nice to be able to make out the couple of word origins that I could. It also has little notes in the margin to explain some things that may not always be so obvious to the reader. Very pleasurable experience here.

What made me even more excited was that as I was reading this, I continually reminded myself that Neil Gaiman has written a screenplay for Beowulf. No word on when and if the film will be filmed and/or released, but no doubt that would be an amazing thing.

Great audio adventure.......2007-05-14

This is the first audiobook that I've ever enjoyed. Seamus Heaney, reading from his own translation of Beowulf (an excellent read, by the way), evokes the past in such a way that, listening, I almost felt that I was in a meadhall listening to an Anglo-Saxon poet.

Oddly, the CD features "unabridged selections" from the poem, which makes as much sense as calling it a "complete abridgement." This reading IS an abridgement--don't be fooled by the packaging--but it is still worth buying and listening to.

By turns melancholy and exciting, this was a great way to spend two hours. Highly recommended.

Beowulf and the audio journey.......2007-05-13

Perhaps I am fortunate to have missed the other translations that others say are not as good as this one. I grabbed the audio anticipating a great journey but found that my mind kept wandering elsewhere. I would suggest you try reading this one--also the last CD appeared to be all about Seamus Heaney which I was not interested in.

I like it.......2007-05-13

This translation is not as literal as some other translations, but it is easier than some for a modern reader to understand, and trying to follow the original Old English printed on the other side of the page is intriguing. This is a good translation for those, like myself, who are reading Beowulf for the first time.

There isn't a better version.......2007-05-03

Seamus Heaney has masterfully rendered this classic tale of an epic struggle between good and evil. The language is beautiful and artfully managed. The story itself is intact and as it was meant to be told.

Heaney takes great care not to destroy this book through the weakness inherent in the translation process itself. Through Heaney's handling of this text, I found a new appreciation for a story I have loved since college.

Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996

Average customer rating:

Kind of interesting...
He who makes English get up and dance...
Seamus Heaney's Poems
!!!THRILL-SPASM!!!
A Triumph of One of the World's Finest Poets

Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996
Seamus Heaney
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Criticism | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Fiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

District and Circle: Poems
Collected Poems
The Poetry of Robert Frost
The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
Poems 1968-1998

ASIN: 0374526788

Amazon.com

For Seamus Heaney, "opened ground" is a necessity--a way of getting to the root of things. The book bearing that name spans three decades, beginning with "Digging," his exhilarating portrait of the artist as a young revolutionary. "Between my finger and my thumb / The squat pen rests; snug as a gun," Heaney boasts (although by the end of the poem, his weapon has metamorphosed into something closer to the spade his grandfather and father once relied upon). The last entry, the sonnet "Postscript," appears some 400 pages later, which makes Opened Ground a capacious selection of his work. But at this point Heaney requires the largest of hold-alls. There are beautiful, pastoral lyrics here, sequences such as "Glanmore Sonnets" and "Clearances," and a multitude of love poems, not solely to his wife but to his parents and children. And in Heaney's hands, small domestic moments and objects--a scrabble board, a swing, a kite, a bed sawn in half to get it downstairs--invariably become both reality and soaring myth.

At the same time, his Ireland is the site of "neighborly murders," and the past and larger world he confronts is one threatened by history and brutal sectarianism. Heaney has declared, "Fear is the emotion that the muse thrives on. That's always there"--and terror is pervasive in his "land of password, handgrip, wink and nod, / Of open minds as open as a trap." Many of his poems that explore the Troubles reflect his own considerable concern that he has long "confused evasion and artistic tact." Others might be termed self-reflexive, since Heaney uses them to unearth his own role. "Kinship" features a simple, brilliant (not to mention canine!) simile: <blockquote> I step through origins
like a dog turning
its memories of wilderness
on the kitchen mat.
</blockquote> In a later poem, "From the Frontier of Writing," he compares the struggle for inspiration to being stopped at a roadblock: "And everything is pure interrogation / until a rifle motions you and you move / with guarded unconcerned acceleration." Heaney's gift is dazzling, and would be almost unbearable were it not matched by vigilance, self-doubt, and regret--and his longing for the day in which "justice can rise up / And hope and history rhyme." --Kerry Fried

Book Description

As selected by the author, Opened Ground includes the essential work from Heaney's twelve previous books of poetry, as well as new sequences drawn from two of his landmark translations, The Cure at Troy and Sweeney Astray, and several previously uncollected poems. Heaney's voice is like no other--"by turns mythological and journalistic, rural and sophisticated, reminiscent and impatient, stern and yielding, curt and expansive" (Helen Vendler, The New Yorker)--and this is a one-volume testament to the musicality and precision of that voice. The book closes with Heaney's Nobel Lecture: "Crediting Poetry."

Customer Reviews:

Kind of interesting..........2007-01-09

I needed the book for a class... I went in to reading it like it was going to be garbage... But it actually was a little bit interesting...

He who makes English get up and dance..........2006-04-28

If you have not read Seamus Heaney, then you are not in touch with what the English language is in its heart. Heaney's simple, unstrained word usage, coupled with a deep knowledge of the rich Anglo-Saxon which is our cornerstone, evokes a strength which comes not so much from what we see and know as from something which is rooted deeply in our psyches as Anglo-Europeans (or at least those living in and a part of such cultures). Heaney also brings to light the beauty of the ordinary, primarily by weighting it with the yoke of history and the various passions of his fellow man.

I bought this collection because I enjoyed others of his works (especially The Spirit Level and Seeing Things), which I uncovered at the library, too much to go long without his poetry. And this collection turns out to have all of my favorites from those volumes, as well as the best and most skilled of the poems of his earlier volumes. Do I recommend it? I wouldn't have prominently displayed the fact that I was reading it in numerous public places if I didn't, now would I?

Seamus Heaney's Poems.......2005-12-18

After currently studying the quality of Seamus Heaney's poems, i am quite sure that this book will not dissapoint you. The quality of Heaney's poems are somewhat outstanding, they are a shock, as you dont normally read poems of this sort, and once you read one, you have to read the others. One of my personal favourites is Mid-Term Break.

Written by Kirk Aged 14

!!!THRILL-SPASM!!!.......2005-09-18

strong poems, there is a sadness and a resignation of fog that permeates these poems. this is a melancholy man, one for whom the all-pervading glue of inaction and paralysis bounds him to a bleak world, soiled and grey and drab. this is a weary poet, too nauseated with reality's bruised soldiers, slovenly rudeness, the uncouth glutton, the debauched fiend. i enjoy him, immerse myself in his dust-gloom, his inability to soar into elation and falcon-freedom.

author of Lorelei Pursued and Wrestles with God

A Triumph of One of the World's Finest Poets.......2005-03-20

Bearing the richest oeuvre of any Irish poet since Yeats, Heaney's Opened Ground charts a grand and complex course: from the taut, visceral, hyper-sensitive poems of his first few collections, to the gut-gripping political satire of the 'middle period', to the daring, mythical metaphors of the later sequences. With a deep and searing intelligence which seems to invent a new and exciting poetics with every turn of the page, Heaney's voice is one that asks if it can reach into you, instead of forcing its way inside. He speaks horizontally to the reader, rather than down to him, and that quality I admire, especially since much of post-modern poetry seems to ingratiate to a select audience by saying, "Look what I can do!" Heaney's poetry, by contrast, is a gift to everyone.

Average customer rating:

Brilliant poet; not a nice guy
A LOVELY BOOK
Smoking Irish peat
The Drum Major of Modern Poetry
An Evening with Heaney

District and Circle: Poems
Seamus Heaney
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Fiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996
Averno: Poems
Horse Latitudes: Poems
Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments
The End of the Poem (Oxford Lectures)

ASIN: 0374530815
Release Date: 2007-04-03

Book Description

District and Circle inhabits the eerie new conditions of a menaced twenty-first century. In their haunted, almost visionary clarity, the poems assay the weight and worth of what has been held in the hand and in the memory. Scenes from a childhood spent far from the horrors of World War II are colored by a strongly contemporary sense that “Anything can happen,” and other images from the dangerous present—a fireman’s helmet, a journey on the Underground, a melting glacier—are fraught with this same anxiety. But the volume, which includes some “found prose” poems and translations, offers resistance as the poet gathers his staying powers and stands his ground in the hiding places of love and excited language. With more relish and conviction than ever, Heaney maintains his trust in the obduracy of workaday realities and the mystery of everyday renewals.

Customer Reviews:

Brilliant poet; not a nice guy.......2007-05-30

Heaney's tremendously gifted (who else has made poetry out of a windshield wiper struggling with snow?). And yes, he's candid. But his candor reveals some real nastiness -- for instance, he takes a vicious shot at Ted Hughes, after eulogizing Hughes so eloquently at Westminster Abbey in 1999 that Heaney's remarks are quoted at length on the back jacket of the current edition of Hughes's Selected Poems. Poets don't have to be nice guys, of course; but be advised that (on the evidence here) Heaney's not one.

A LOVELY BOOK.......2007-02-08

THIS IS WHAT A 'SLIM VOLUME' SHOULD BE, HARD COVER,WELL BOUND, QUALITY PAPER, EASY TO SLIP INTO A POCKET AND SIP FROM AT ODD MOMENTS. WONDERFUL POEMS, LIKE A SERIES OF SNAPSHOTS - WHAT ONE EXPECTS FROM SEAMUS HEANEY, A VARIETY OF INTENSE, IMMEDIATE; SHARED MOMENTS, LIKE THE 'COLD SMOOTH CREEPING STEEL AND SNICKING SCISSORS' OF CLIP.

Smoking Irish peat.......2007-01-10

It felt as if a piece of smoking Irish peat had been flung in my door when this little paperback arrived in Santa Monica, California. The pages are alive with Ireland, the thoughts and feelings I had forgotten or never knew how to acknowledge.

"There was an extra-ness in the air, as if a gate had been left open in the usual life, as if something might get in or get out."
The unseen and untouchable are tangible here. I love it all.

The Drum Major of Modern Poetry.......2006-11-10

You cannot read these poems without feeling better about the whole universe. He hears an underground piper. His house has no upstairs. He celebrates stretcher bearers, bricklayers. Turns walls into air. He chooses red haws and whins, brogues and rigs, cripples with perseverence and we feel the work as we go along. He watches the pollen sowings tarnish her pools. He's mother nature's strong right hand and eye. God bless him.

An Evening with Heaney.......2006-07-11

Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney's latest collection "District and Circle" takes us into a multitude of worlds. The finest poems seem to be in the front and in the back. In these poems he chants lyrically about Irish farming practices to miniature homages to other poets, such as Rilke and Neruda. In the first poem, the reader can actually hear the grunt of the laborer as he struggles with his tools and we are given the sensation in real time. From a boyhood in the Second World War to what seems an odd morning in the life a mature poet, we feel the impressionist candor of Heaney's writing. I found this collection enjoyable, but there are a few forgettable poems, and a few that seem irrelevant, but it may be that I missed the nuances. Overall, it is worth reading, but do not make it your only foray into Heaney's poetry for, admittedly, it had been mine.

A Way of Life, Like Any Other (New York Review Books Classics)

Average customer rating:

Livestyles of the formerly rich and famous
"Imagine sacrificing your life to a maniac."
Amazing Feat of Compression and Eloquence
A Fantastic Novel
A Way of Life

A Way of Life, Like Any Other (New York Review Books Classics)
Darcy O'Brien
Manufacturer: NYRB Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Fiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Cassandra at the Wedding
A House and Its Head (New York Review Books Classics)
What's for Dinner? (New York Review Books Classics)
Wheat that Springeth Green (New York Review Books Classics)
The Unpossessed: A Novel of the Thirties (New York Review Books Classics Series)

ASIN: 094032279X
Release Date: 2001-08-31

Book Description

The hero of Darcy O'Brien's A Way of Life, Like Any Other is a child of Hollywood, and once his life was a glittery dream. His father starred in Westerns. His mother was a goddess of the silver screen. The family enjoyed the high life on their estate, Casa Fiesta. But his parents' careers have crashed since then, and their marriage has broken up too.

Lovesick and sex-crazed, the mother sets out on an intercontinental quest for the right—or wrong—man, while her mild-mannered but manipulative former husband clings to his memories in California. And their teenage son? How he struggles both to keep faith with his family and to get by himself, and what in the end he must do to break free, makes for a classic coming-of-age story—a novel that combines keen insight and devastating wit to hilarious and heartbreaking effect.

Customer Reviews:

Livestyles of the formerly rich and famous.......2006-09-12

In his introduction to this reissue of a novel first published in 1977, Seamus Heaney dwells on Darcy O'Brien's Irishness (comparing him to Joyce and Flann O'Brien) and ponders how one might attempt to describe the book: "Autobiographical novel, fictionalized memoir: whether we regard the book as 'cri de coeur' or comic turn..."

O'Brien's Irish heritage seems beside the point (must every Irish American writer be placed against Joyce and Flann O'Brien?), but this is, indeed, a work that skirts the line between fact and fiction. Heaney's literary acumen aside, this is also a very American book--more specifically a highbrow model of that lowest of middlebrow fiction, the Hollywood novel. More germanely to the author, it is a raw, impassioned, and surprisingly tender ode to his parents--a pair of has-been, real-life film stars down on their luck and at odds with each other. Finding humor (both lighthearted and morbid) amid relative misery, "A Way of Life" is far more a precursor to the confessional works by the likes of David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, and Jeannette Walls than a successor to early-twentieth-century Irish fiction.

Hollywood has never been shy about laughing at itself; readers will recognize many of the central-casting players depicted here, along with the shallow pretensions of the jet set. But O'Brien's succinct, disarmingly blunt prose places his book a cut above the norm--even his caricatures are fully drawn with the briefest of scenes: the ego-driven producer with an out-of-control gambling addiction, his permissive wife whose major concern is that her own daily horse-racing allowance might suffer as a result, their unrestrained and oversexed adolescent son, a pompous salesman of trendy foodstuffs (in the 1950s, those would include, hilariously, avocadoes), a flighty car dealer who peddles John Birch Society tracts along with his automobiles. Adding to the book's authenticity are cameos by real people, including John Ford, who in life directed O'Brien's father in several movies and who in fiction is portrayed as a gentlemanly mentor who graciously meets with his hapless former leading man.

But the real "stars" of the novel are O'Brien's parents. The unnamed narrator's charmed, pampered early life is ripped apart when his parents split and their finances suffer. His mother flits from one abusive or inappropriate replacement to another; his father refuses to accept their estrangement: "Your Mother and I are still married in the eyes of the Church." Their son first lives with his mother, then with his father, and finds that they both have become uproariously and painfully impossible. Eventually, he moves into a friend's expansive and expensive home and discovers that all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way, but it's to O'Brien's credit that he is able to make this journey both comical and heartrending at the same time.

"Imagine sacrificing your life to a maniac.".......2004-07-09

"A Way of Life Like Any Other" is a delightful semi-autobiographical book based on the childhood of author, Darcy O'Brien. His parents were both Hollywood stars in the 30s. His father was George O'Brien--also known as "the Chest" and he starred in many cowboy films--including "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" and "Riders of the Purple Sage." Darcy O'Brien's mother was actress Marguerite Churchill.

Darcy, who was named by his mother after the character in Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", spent his early childhood in Casa Fiesta--a mansion in Malibu. He notes that he "would not change the beginning for anything", for he was the pampered centre of everyone's attention, and adored and loved by both of his parents. By the end of WWII, however, Darcy's parents split up and were impoverished. The mansion was sold, and Darcy went to live with his mother in Los Angeles. Darcy's mother was far from stable. She was on the constant hunt for the new, perfect man, and the novel details the men who parade through her bedroom. She finally selects a Russian named Anatol, a sculptor who specializes in classical statues all engaged in a variety of strange, erotic acts.

Darcy's parents are portrayed with kind, generous and humorous detail. His potty mother takes every opportunity to make life a 'B' film--and she is, of course, cast in the starring role as the remarkable heroine or the helpless victim of fate. She's pretentious, amazingly shallow and selfish, and yet in spite of all these negative qualities, Darcy's relationship to his mother remains enviable--if only for the entertainment value. Darcy's father is hilarious. He's the stable parent of the two, and he tells incredible stories of his past Hollywood days--some of the stories are pure fiction, but some turn out to be completely true. Darcy's father is every bit as entertaining as Darcy's mother--not as dramatic, but he holds more surprises. The novel is extremely funny--one of my favourite scenes occurs when the long-divorced parents join together for Thanksgiving dinner with an ex-agent and her avocado-obsessed husband. "A Way Of Life Like Any Other" could easily have been written from a "Mommie Dearest" perspective, but, instead the author's viewpoint leaves us enjoying his parents and their human foibles. It was clearly the author's intent to regard his parents with a sort of generous, appreciative marvel--and he succeeded admirably--displacedhuman

Amazing Feat of Compression and Eloquence.......2003-01-10

The writing here is so filled with generosity, compassion, and dark humor -- it's a most charming view of life. A coming-of-age novel about a boy who grows up in post-WW II Hollywood, shuffling between unforgettable, screwed-up parents. There's not a dead sentence here. It's short, but O'Brien captures it all. Completely re-readable. Keep it by your bedside to inspire and forgive your own life when you feel like it's trying to beat you down.

A Fantastic Novel.......2002-07-29

This is a MUST. Indeed it is Caulden Houlfield in Hollywood. If you like Catcher in the Rye, most likely you will love this book. It really is a great story with some great humor.

A Way of Life.......2001-12-11

Darcy O'Brien combines the surreal humor of Flann O'Brien and the limpid prose of the young James Joyce and somehow writes a coming of age book which transcends both mentors in some ways. Lean, cool, dry, witty, but in the end, mysteriously poignant. Anthony Powell always argued that seen at close range all human beings, driven as they are at different speeds by the same furies, are equally extraordinary. O'Brien proves Powell's point, in prose reminscent of that master's early comic novels.

The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone

Average customer rating:

Excellent Teaching Tool
Not terribly poetic
"ARE WE SISTER, SISTER, BROTHER OR COWARD, COWARD, TRAITOR?"

The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone

Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Greek & Roman | Drama | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Drama | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Tragedy | Drama | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Art Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Entertainment Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Fiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes
Sophocles: Antigone (Cambridge Translations from Greek Drama)
Antigone (Methuen Student Edition)
District and Circle: Poems
Antigones: How the Antigone Legend Has Endured in Western Literature, Art, and Thought

ASIN: 0374530076
Release Date: 2005-10-13

Book Description

Sophocles' play, first staged in the fifth century B.C., stands as a timely exploration of the conflict between those who affirm the individual's human rights and those who must protect the state's security. During the War of the Seven Against Thebes, Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus, learns that her brothers have killed each other, having been forced onto opposing sides of the battle. When Creon, king of Thebes, grants burial of one but not the "treacherous" other, Antigone defies his order, believing it her duty to bury all of her close kin. Enraged, Creon condemns her to death, and his soldiers wall her up in a tomb. While Creon eventually agrees to Antigone's release, it is too late: She takes her own life, initiating a tragic repetition of events in her family's history.

In this outstanding new translation, commissioned by Ireland's renowned Abbey Theatre to commemorate its centenary, Seamus Heaney exposes the darkness and the humanity in Sophocles' masterpiece, and inks it with his own modern and masterly touch.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Teaching Tool.......2005-10-17

After teaching years of sophomore English, I have finally found a version of Antigone that even 15 and 16-year-olds can understand and appreciate. Still loads of figurative language to teach and what an author to introduce your students to alongside Sophocles!

Not terribly poetic.......2005-10-10

The Antigone of Sophocles exists in a number of English renditions. The Abbey Theatre commissioned Heaney to do yet another for its centenary. In an afterword to this volume he explains the genesis of his version -- why he decided to do it and how. He explained his poetic tactics, as it were, and justified a "middle style" by referring to Yeats, who wrote of a "common" style he and others used -- many years earlier, of course -- in plays for the Abbey.

Hmm. There is no question that the language Heaney uses here is plain. It is possible to see his three-beat lines and his five-beat pentameter and his Beowulf-style 4-beat alliterative lines in the reading. What I don't see is poetry -- I don't actually even see much verse. The language seems neutral rather than charged. Poetry can use common words, but needs to cause shivers -- not in every line, but often enough that the reader keeps alert for more electricity. The various verse lines he uses are rather weakly distinctive: the forms hover around their ideals without touching them enough to keep a listener on track.

I saw the play performed by the Chicago Shakespeare Theater company on September 18, 2005. It played somewhat better than it read (e.g. the initial byplay between Antigone and Ismene, and that between Creon and Haemon). Still, though, having read it, I was listening carefully (hopefully?) for the beat of the verse -- or at least the feel of the verse. In fact, though the actors did a good job and did, as I think, justice to the text, it seemed rather flat.

Perhaps I disagree with the "plain" style. I think Sophocles was a powerful poet whose language rang with hard beauty and allusive power. He must have been. Perhaps, though, all this happened in the songs that the chorus, and sometimes the principals, sang. For another quarrel I have with this version is that it does not give any indications of choral parts -- strophe and antistrophe -- so even in principle it is not singable. What is more, this is a rather loose rendering of Sophocles play (a "version"), which does not really depart from the drama, but makes it more spare of expression. This comes at the expense of some of the specifically Greek elements, such as constant specific references to Zeus. Yet it is still a classical Greek play, just less of one. Moreover, there were no notes on the text, while there were at least a few puzzling parts that should have been noted, as well as the choral parts. But who knows -- maybe the Abbey Theatre made more of it than I can!

"ARE WE SISTER, SISTER, BROTHER OR COWARD, COWARD, TRAITOR?".......2005-06-10

A few years back, Mr. Heaney (an excellent poet in his own right) caused quite a stir with his stunning translation of Beowulf. My own reactions to that work were mixed. But who would have thought an Old English war epic/elegy would prove so commercially successful?

Now comes an outstanding "translation" of Sophocles's Antigone--"The Burial at Thebes." I first came across this work in excerpted form in Tin House (a literary journal--one of the best actually). This book far exceeds what Mr. Heaney did with Beowulf.

Yet the crickets are chirping.

It is incomprehensible to me as to why this deeply abiding and thoughtful little book has not blown away the sales and notoriety of the Beowulf volume. Whereas Heaney's Beowulf was clearly a labor of deep interest to the translator--a skillfull and intriguing update of the language for the 21st century, The Burial at Thebes is just as clearly a work of love on behalf of the author...I mean translator--a satirical, lyrical, and prophetic work of the highest order that speaks directly to our world today.

I could not put this play--this hymn to all that we are as humans, this song of our identity as individuals--not mere components of a state--down.

Antigone's early question/indictment of her sister's complacency rings out like a bell against the twin idols of false patriotism and corporate globalisation:

"Are we sister, sister, brother
Or coward, coward, traitor?"

What follows is a heroic tragedy. Not heoric in the way the Iliad or the Odyssey are (weapons, war, dust, funeral pyres and great feasts of blood), but heroic in the greatest sense (to know who you are and what is truly worth dying for).

Homer and much of the rest of the world sing of war. Sophocles, and his interpreter Heaney, sing of another kind of war--the war of being human in the deepest, richest, and often most tragic, yet inspiring way.

I give "The Burial at Thebes" my highest recommendation.

(If you are interested in a great traditional translation to have as a complement to Heaney's, you cannot go wrong with Robert Fagles's translation of the theban plays in the Penguin Classics series).

Average customer rating:

Excellent
good portrait of Heaney's development

Selected Poems 1966-1987
Seamus Heaney
Manufacturer: Noonday Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Fiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Inventing Ireland (Convergences: Inventories of the Present)
The Portable James Joyce
The Redress of Poetry
The Yeats Reader: A Portable Compendium of Poetry, Drama, and Prose
The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett: A Reader's Guide to His Works, Life, and Thought

ASIN: 0374522804

Amazon.com

Seamus Heaney was the winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize, and this collection reveals the range, sureness, and quality of his achievements. Includes the complete and revised version of his long poem, "Station Island," as well as a number of prose poems previously unpublished in the U.S.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent.......2006-06-26

Seamus Heaney is an Irish treasure in literature. His works display the "concrete reality" that he aimed for in his poetry. My favorite poem is "Digging". He is talented in fusing agric./pol./soc./religion themes together in one poem.

good portrait of Heaney's development.......1998-03-27

Heaney's "Selected Poems" shows a good picture of the poet's development up to "Station Island" and the sonnets of Glanmore and Clearances. Like Yeats, Heaney had to go through a few volumes before he "became good": except for "The Tolland Man," the poems selected from his first four collections are flat, even the much-anthologized "Digging," which perseveres in anthologies only because it illustrates Heaney's overall philosophy. With the bog poems from "North," Heaney comes into his own, and he has managed to remain at this consistent level of excellence since then.

Average customer rating:

A formidable achievement
In Honor Of St Patrick's Day...
A classic, deserving of the Nobel Prize!
reading poetry

Seeing Things: Poems
Seamus Heaney
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Fiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Spirit Level: Poems
District and Circle: Poems
Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996
Electric Light: Poems
The Redress of Poetry

ASIN: 0374523894

Book Description

Seeing Things (1991), as Edward Hirsch wrote in The New York Times Book Review, "is a book of thresholds and crossings, of losses balanced by marvels, of casting and gathering and the hushed, contrary air between water and sky, earth and heaven." Along with translations from the Aeneid and the Inferno, this book offers several poems about Heaney's late father.

Customer Reviews:

A formidable achievement.......2002-07-26

Perhaps this book represents Heaney's finest poetry since 'Field Work.' It contains the magnificent sequence 'Squarings,' and a continuation of his Glanmore sonnets. The craftsmanship impeccable, the voice down-to-earth.

We remember especially his sonnet on Lent in which the poet deals with 'A fasted will marauding through the body,' and the poem "Wheels within Wheels," where a child spins the pedals of an inverted bicycle and notes "The way the space between the hub and rim / Hummed with transparency." Note the unobtrusive assonances, & the exact right words.

In one of the twelve-line poems of 'Squarings', Heaney counsels himself and other poets: 'Do not waver / Into language. Do not waver in it.' In this sequence, it is Heaney's happy accomplishment to have heeded that counsel in an exemplary fashion. Driving through an avenue or tunnel of trees, arching over a quarter-mile stretch of country road, Heaney sees the trees as 'Calligraphic shocks / Bushed and tufted in prevailing winds.' Could Thomas Hardy or Wallace Stevens have done as well?

Talking about it isn't good enough,

But quoting from it at least demonstrates

The virtue of an art that knows its mind.

In Honor Of St Patrick's Day..........2002-03-19

i thought i'd read a irish writer. i couldn't think of a better choice than heaney. the poems here are subtle, but infinitely brilliant. i love the way he uses mythology in some of the pieces, taking references from dante and homer. he draws from his family life, childhood, and his lifelong experiences to create poems that are wondrous in form and content.

A classic, deserving of the Nobel Prize!.......2000-10-04

Seamus Heaney won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, in large part because of this book. The poetry isn't archaic or highbrow or needing 80 pages of notes to understand. It's written comfortably and easily, about simple things from his childhood and life.

I bought this to take on a trip to Ireland, and it was fantastic reading it while walking the green meadows and rocky coastline. It breathes Irish air. If you have a love for the misty grasses, or simply enjoy rural, quiet life, read through these poems.

The poems talk of birth, and love, and death, of heather bells and boats in docks. Give them a try, and be swept away in their gentle language.

reading poetry.......1997-12-27

Mr. Heaney's titled poem "Seeing Things" takes us to a fishing trip between father and son. It is a calming journey about childhood, youth and the bond between father and son, and poet and audience. I wish that learning to read poetry is as mystical and unassumingly peaceful as learning to fish with one's parent. My wish may be true.

Beowulf: A Verse Translation (Norton Critical Editions)

Average customer rating:

Sometimes it's good to be critical
Excellent edition
They're Right; Heaney's Only Okay
Excellent, but stay with Donaldson
Much more than an old parchment...

Beowulf: A Verse Translation (Norton Critical Editions)

Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Epic | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Ancient, Classical & Medieval | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Qualifying Textbooks - Spring 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Grendel
The Canterbury Tales (Norton Critical Editions)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, Pearl: Verse Translations
Beowulf: A Prose Translation, Second Edition (Norton Critical Editions)
Paradise Lost (Norton Critical Editions)

ASIN: 0393975800

Book Description

Winner of the Whitbread Prize, Seamus Heaney's translation "accomplishes what before now had seemed impossible: a faithful rendering that is simultaneously an original and gripping poem in its own right" (New York Times Book Review). The translation that "rides boldly through the reefs of scholarship" (The Observer) is combined with first-rate annotation. No reading knowledge of Old English is assumed. Heaney's clear and insightful introduction to Beowulf provides students with an understanding of both the poem's history in the canon and Heaney's own translation process. "Contexts" provides a rich selection of material on Anglo-Saxon and early Northern culture. "Criticism" features eight essays carefully chosen for their relevance to undergraduate readers, including a full discussion of the Old English poem that lies behind Heaney's translation. Contributors include J.R.R. Tolkien, John Leyerle, Jane Chance, Roberta Frank, Fred C. Robinson, Thomas Hill, Leslie Webster, and Daniel Donoghue. A Glossary of Proper Names and a Selected Bibliography are included.

<B>About the series</B>: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the <B>Norton Critical Editions</B>. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.

Customer Reviews:

Sometimes it's good to be critical.......2007-02-05

I had already bought Heaney's "A New Verse Translation" before I needed to buy this edition for a university class. That said, if you're only looking for a translation of the poem with no frills, buy the "New Verse Translation" because it's got the text in parallel with the original Anglo-Saxon. But if you're interested in Beowulf criticism and related anthropology then pick up this edition, because half the book is critical essays, including Tolkein's seminal work.

Excellent edition.......2006-08-30

This is a beautiful translation that captures the tone and tenor of Old English. Although it eschews the alliterative line essential to Old English poetry, Heaney's rendering is magically evocative of the somber stoicism and occasionally wry understatement of this seminal poem. The critical commentary provides a nice general scholarly apparatus that helps one contextualize and better appreciate the poem and the achievement of Heaney as a modern day "scop" through whom the original - alas anonymous - poet speaks.

They're Right; Heaney's Only Okay.......2005-09-02

I agree with other member reviewers: Heaney's translation is better than some, but not particularly great. It loses the tone of the original Old English BEOWULF, which is harsh and deliberately choppy and repetitive. Along the same line, Heaney follows the fairly contemptible modern practice of coming up with his own thoroughly informal verse form -- kind of four-beat lines, but not always, often alliterating and often not. This is about the worst choice possible to give the feel of a poem in which alliteration is absolutely mandatory, and heavy syntactical constraints are put on the poet as well. As a result, Heaney ends up way too easygoing and distant, reproducing, but exaggerating, the cool academic intellectualism that mars his own original poetry. The hype around his translation is annoying. Pope, a genuinely great poet, was torn to pieces by critics for not reproducing Homer's tone and manner; the critics are letting Heaney off scott free.

Excellent, but stay with Donaldson.......2005-07-30

I am a dissenter from the hype surrounding Seamus Heaney's new translation. I prefer Donaldson for two important reasons: the transparency of the translation and the translator's humble willingness to let stand archaic implications that may seem absurb or offensive to most people today.

On a technical level, Donaldson--much more consistently than Heaney--reproduces Old English compounded words and phrases with Modern equivalents. He does this with accuracy and freshness--if not with seamless grace as some readers would prefer. The great advantage of Donaldson's approach is that the reader who does not read OE can at least imagine that she can second-guess the translator, and can feel the raw, rugged texture of the original. Even my 12th grade (inner city high school) students who have bought Heaney's version have become irate at a number of crucial points where the complexity preserved by Donaldson has been eliminated by Heaney.

A second point--or a second way of looking at the same point--concerns interpretation. With all due respect to Heaney, he has an agenda related to the future of the European Union, and I suspect that this motivated or influenced his approach to the translation of Beowulf. Heaney is presenting, via the seminal text of Beowulf, a vision of the origins of European politcs that he believes will ultimately lay a foundation for its future viability and humanity.

Heaney's version is this a much more creative endeavor than was Donaldson's. Where Donaldson allows seeming incoherencies to emerge for the modern reader, Heaney makes things make sense. The main difference here lies in the treatment of the hero. For Heaney, Beowulf is an unambiguous ideal figure. Donaldson, on the other hand, preserves the original ambiguity of a hero who is physically similar to the monsters he fights in his superiority to ordinary men.

There's no translation without interpretation, but there's also a question of degree of control to consider. Heaney's translation falls in line with the unfortunate tradition of Raffel, whose Procrustean approach privileged modern sensibility above everything else. Heaney is much better than Raffel, but Donaldson is one of those rare translations that has and will continue to stand the test of time because he didn't try too hard to be a person of his time.

Much more than an old parchment..........2004-07-24

Most people probably think Beowulf is still read merely because it's old. Well, it is old. Wow it's old. Hoary and whiskery old. Best estimates place the composition somewhere between the 7th and 10th centuries A.D. One can speak in terms of millenia when speaking of Beowulf. Though it's old - have I mentioned that it's old - age is definitely not the sole, or even the best, reason for reading the poem. Flinging oneself into Beowulf is almost like flinging oneself into another language (if one wants to argue that Middle English may as well be another language, then there you go). Simply speaking, Beowulf is still read because it is a poetic masterpiece. It's not read because the monsters go "boo" or because it's considered the prequel to "The Lord of The Rings"; it's read for the impact of its language and the themes that it explores. Of course the poem can be read for enjoyment on the level of an adventure tale. There are monsters, and they're scary, gruesome, and mean; there are also swords, gore, carnage, death, heroes, more swords, myth, partying, a vengeful mother monster, a fire-breathing dragon, and more swords. The Beowulf poet wove a good tale. Some parts spew drama. When Beowulf seeks out Grendel's mother to kill her in vengeance for terrorizing the town, he must submerge himself in a pool of horrid things, holding his breath for the best part of a day. When he finds her his ancient sword fails him. A claustrophobic scene ensues that hydrophobes should skip. Nonetheless, a cursory surface reading obscures the rich interwoven text and meanings that peek just under the surface of what seems to be - to a modern reader, at least - a heroic adventure tale.

Just what the poem is about remains somewhat controversial. The incredible essays included in this Norton Critical Edition bring the poem, its history, and its controversies to life. J.R.R. Tolkien's famous and groundbreaking critique of Beowulf heads up the critical section. Also included are analyses of the structure of the poem(is it analogous to interwoven tapestries and designs of the Anglo-Saxons?), its religious tone (is it Pagan or Christian or both?), is it critical of the heroic life (does heroism lead to ruin), is it a statement on the impermanence of greatness? Was Beowulf deified? There's so much to munch on that a list of questions, controversies, and potential resolutions would be exhausting and inevitably incomplete. Leave it to say that the section of criticism allows one to read Beowulf at a higher level and discover just why this old thing is still around.

The translation by 1995 Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney reads wonderfully. No parallel Old English text is included. Heaney's introducton is amazing. It points out salient sections of the poem where the impact of the text is greatest. Heaney directs the reader to Beowulf's funeral where a Geat woman wails and mourns not only the passing of Beowulf but the impending destruction of her culture by foreign invaders now that their defending hero is gone. Heaney's introduction should be read by all Beowulf readers.

Also included are discussions about the archeology of Beowulf. Photos of artifacts and sites provide imagery for the setting of the poem. The boar-crested helmets are worth the price alone.

Beowulf is worth reading. It can be read on many levels: on the level of poetic analysis, historical analysis, philological analysys, as a monster tale, as one of the oldest poems in the english language, or for enjoyment. Big imposing degrees are not required (though admittedly some of the criticism can get heady and academic; this is not a beginner's guide or "Beowulf for Morons"). Open up. Grendel, Mamma, and Dragon await...

The People of the Sea: A Journey in Search of the Seal Legend

Average customer rating:

Oh, that I could give more than five stars
An Unsuccessful Quest?
selchies forever
A wonderful glimpse into a different world

The People of the Sea: A Journey in Search of the Seal Legend
David Thomson
Manufacturer: Counterpoint
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Folklore & Mythology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Reference | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Outdoors & Nature Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Qualifying Textbooks - Spring 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Seal Children
Irish Folktales (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library)
Horse of Pride: Life in a Breton Village
Song of the Selkies
The Celtic Languages (Routledge Language Familydescriptions)

ASIN: 1582431841

Book Description

Now in paperback: A magical book about an ancient legend-that the seal was once human, and can sometimes resume human form--and about the Celtic fishing families who still tell it, sing it, believe it.

Raised among Scottish fishermen and storytellers, David Thomson was obsessed from childhood by the Celtic seal legend, the body of tales and songs about the "selchie," or gray Atlantic seal. In the early 1950's he took a journey to seek the legend out, in the Hebrides, on the east coast of Scotland, on the west coast of Ireland-places where magic co-exists with reality and pre-Christian traditions and beliefs somehow endure.

He gives us here the fruits of his search as he found it, and tells us something of the men, women, and children from whom he heard the stories. He also tells of his own encounters with seals, and the dreamlike hold that these have had on him. The result is, in the words of his friend Seamus Heaney, a poetic achievement-a work of "intuitive understanding, perfect grace, and perfect pitch."

Customer Reviews:

Oh, that I could give more than five stars.......2005-07-22

I first came across this book in Ireland during the late 70's. It has become one of my very favorites. I've given copies to people and at one time gave away my last one to a writer who also wrote Selkie tales. Fortunately, I was able to get more.

As I read the book I feel as though I'm right there with him...the look, the feel, the smell of the air, the ground, inside the homes...he captured it perfectly.

I can't agree with those who complain that it didn't give enough information---. It's one of those things that people don't talk about with outsiders....and there may even be concerns that to talk about it would cause harm in some way---either to them or the Selkies. The fact that he was able to glean as much info as he did is a tribute to the trust the people felt towards him.

I'm so thankful that he made this/these treck(s) and documented as much as he did---even though the tales were being lost even at that time.

There's a great scene in the movie Local Hero, where the scientest gal is either getting into or coming out of the water; at one point the camera passes across her feet and her toes are quite webbed. It's just a visual, nobody says anything or has any reaction to it and if one didn't have the Selkie background it wouldn't have made much sense.

An Unsuccessful Quest?.......2003-02-12

I have to say that I was disappointed with this book. It seems less about the legends about the selkie folk and more about what the author thinks he might feel about such legends---it feels removed, remote, uncommitted. If he was really on search for the truth behind the stories, he didn't seem to be searching very hard, and he didn't seem to share his results particularly successfully, and I never really felt touched by any sense of Celtic other-worldliness---and that's what I was hoping for and waiting for. The introduction by Seamus Heaney was, alas, the best part of the book...

selchies forever.......2001-08-29

I was fifteen when I first read this book, in 1967. I had never heard any of the Selchie legends, and I was completely enchanted by them, and by Thomson's writing. He doesn't just retell these tales; he finds those people who still tell them, and lets them speak for themselves. We hear about how they lived then, and how they live now, showing how beautiful some of the old ways were, and how sad their loss is. I have re-read it many times since and, as I get older, I find more in it that speaks to me. It should be impossible to feel nostalgia for something you have never experienced, but Thomson has managed to fill me with that emotion. I'm thrilled that it is back in print again (my copy is worn thin!) and that the celebrated poet Seamus Heaney has written the new foreword.

A wonderful glimpse into a different world.......2001-02-27

This is one of the most marvelous (in all senses of the word) reading experiences I've had in a long time. Thomson's book was originally published in the 1950's, but had fallen out of print and was resurrected through the efforts of Seamus Heaney, a friend of the author's who also provides a very helpful introduction. As a child, Thomson became fascinated by legends of seals who transform themselves into human beings (or vice versa), and in pursuit of this interest he traveled into remote areas of Scotland and Ireland where these legends were still part of the living folk tradition. But in the 1940's the tradition was dying out: the educational system pressured children to speak English rather than Gaelic, and listening to the radio had superseded traditional entertainments such as storytelling. Thomson's chapters depict a way of life that was already disappearing; he conveys not only the stories themselves but the entire "flavor" of the storytelling -- the people who tell them, the phraseology they use, their audiences, and the smoky cottages and fishy seaside shacks where the stories are told. His summary of the seal legends is fascinating, but the greatest pleasure of the book, for me, was its evocation of the world in which the legends arose. I can't recommend this book highly enough. (Suggested listening to accompany the final chapter: "The Song of the Seals" from Matt Molloy's album "Shadows on Stone.")

Average customer rating:

Dante's Student
Heaney at his best
The master at his finest

Station Island
Seamus Heaney
Manufacturer: Faber and Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Seeing Things: Poems
District and Circle: Poems
Outside History: Selected Poems, 1980-1990
The Spirit Level: Poems
Field Work

ASIN: 0571133029

Customer Reviews:

Dante's Student.......2005-06-13

"Station Island" is a series of 12 poems in the second section of the book. It follows Dante's meeting with different shades in The Divine Comedy. Heaney himself claims to be deeply influenced by Dante, and it is a Dante through TS Eliot. Although unlike TS Eliot who increasingly become religious in his work (partly due to what Dante claimed in the Divine Comedy that writing needs a transcendence and it must come from god), Heaney rejects religion as a form of transcendence.

The book must be taken as a whole and as a whole, Heaney wishes, for the first time in his career, to shake off his past literary influences and Irish writers such as James Joyce (who wrote Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), Patrick Kavanagh, and William Caleton. It is also the first time that he wishes to explain his political apathy despite his success as a poet through remarkable poems like Chekhov on Sakhalin, section VIII of "Station Island". The poems are incisive and unapologetic, like the shade of James Joyce telling Heaney to "Let go, Let fly."

However, after rejecting religion, politics and his literary past in the sequence of poems, Heaney cannot provide an answer what and why he is writing for because:

"There a drinking deer
...
at a dried-up source."

The deer of poetry has met a drought of a pool of dried-up ink. If only he could provide a kind of transcendence then this book would have been perfect.

Heaney at his best.......2000-04-09

This is still Heaney's best book of poetry to date. Centered around his 12 canto "Station Island," a poignant and disturbing 'portrait of the artist,' Station Island marked the transition in Heaney's career into the mature artist and greatest poet writing in English that we know today. A classic book of verse, written with lyrical precision and emotional power.

The master at his finest.......2000-01-02

The title poem in this collection is one of the masterpieces of our day

Authors:

Authors

Authors